One thing is clear from the Facebook hearing. Many Senators on this committee have no idea how any of this works, are reading staff-written questions & have very little ability to ask meaningful follow up questions.
2:53 PM - Apr 10, 2018

No surprise there.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg opened his comments to Tuesday’s highly anticipated congressional hearing by apologizing for a series of missteps that, he acknowledged, have imperiled the privacy of tens of millions of Americans and helped spread both phony news and Russian disinformation.

“It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well,” Zuckerberg said at the Senate hearing. “And that goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.

Zuckerberg, who has long avoided wading into Washington affairs, took responsibility for the missteps. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. And it was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

As the Senate hearing commenced, Zuckerberg appeared serious as he faced sharp criticism from lawmakers.

One thing is clear from the Facebook hearing. Many Senators on this committee have no idea how any of this works, are reading staff-written questions & have very little ability to ask meaningful follow up questions.
2:53 PM - Apr 10, 2018

No surprise there.

Ha. I just texted that same idea to my son. Some of them have no clue.

The data consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which harvested as many as 87 million Facebook users' personal data, also could have accessed the private inbox messages of some of those affected. Facebook slipped this previously undisclosed detail into the notifications that began appearing at the top of News Feeds on Monday. These alerts let users know whether they or their friends had downloaded a personality quiz app called This Is Your Digital Life, which would have caused their data to be collected and potentially passed on to Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook buried the disclosure in the details about what information was compromised: "A small number of people who logged into 'This Is Your Digital Life' also shared their own News Feed, timeline, posts and messages which may have included posts and messages from you."

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the app, which was designed by Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan to collect data on Americans on behalf of Cambridge Analytica’s British counterpart SCL, requested access to user inboxes through the read_mailbox permission. Unlike the collection of specific user friend information, which Facebook says it phased out in April 2015 unless both people had downloaded the same app, the read_mailbox permission didn't fully deprecate until that October.

Users had to agree to give apps access to their inboxes, but that request for highly personal information would be bundled up with a list of other more benign data points, including birthdays or profile pictures. It's possible some users approved this access, never knowing how much of themselves they were giving up, not just to Cambridge Analytica, but to every app that requested these permissions until 2015.

As the crisis at Facebook intensified, a Mercer adviser met senior managers to ask for an outside inquest. He told BuzzFeed News Facebook initially seemed open to the idea — then suddenly didn’t.

A well-connected tech investor met with Facebook senior management late last month on behalf of billionaire Republican donor Rebekah Mercer to suggest an independent investigation into Cambridge Analytica, data collection, and the 2016 election, BuzzFeed News has learned.

The investor, Matt Michelsen, and a Facebook source confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the meeting took place. According to Michelsen, Facebook leadership seemed open to the possibility of an outside inquiry — and to meeting in person with Mercer — during the hour-long, March 20 meeting, but changed its attitude suddenly later that week.

News that Facebook had initially seemed to consider, but then declined to pursue Mercer’s suggestion of an independent investigation into the way the controversial data analytics firm funded by Mercer’s father, Robert, used its platform, provides new insight into the social giant’s response to the ongoing crisis that has shaken the faith of the public and investors. ...

Michelsen and his family were skiing in Colorado with Mercer and her family when news broke that Facebook had failed to disclose Cambridge Analytica’s improper use of data about tens of millions of Americans. Michelsen told Buzzfeed News he cut the trip short to fly to San Francisco to meet with senior managers at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. Mercer had asked him to represent her position and request an independent investigation.

The Verge: Here’s how much Facebook donated to every lawmaker questioning Mark Zuckerberg this week ...

The campaign contributions from Facebook to all the legislators who posed Mark Zuckerberg questions this week are listed below. The list includes the members of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees and House Committee on Energy and Commerce are listed in full below, and dates back to 2014.

Senator Klobuchar asked Zuckerberg whether Cambridge Analytica and the Russian disinformation campaign run out of Saint Petersburg’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) many have been targeting the same users.

"We're investigating that now. We believe that it is entirely possible that there will be a connection there,” Zuckerberg answered.

Facebook estimates that 126 million people were exposed to IRA content on its platform while 87 million of its users’ data was swept up by Cambridge Analytica, but this is the first suggestion by the company that there may be a link between the two.

If Facebook refuses to sue Cambridge Analytica for Facebook's losses (based on violations of its TOS and fraud), then Facebook is not serious about protecting privacy. It's only serious about monetizing human beings.

If Facebook refuses to sue Cambridge Analytica for Facebook's losses (based on violations of its TOS and fraud), then Facebook is not serious about protecting privacy. It's only serious about monetizing human beings.

That was rhetorical amIrite?????

The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.

I have to admit that I am sort of baffled about this fuss and I feel some sympathy for Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg devised a social media system whereby people could reveal a great deal of their personal data and sentiments to others, including strangers.

People joined up and, entirely voluntarily and of their own volition, submitted personal details about themselves to the Facebook system, even though most of them had no notion of the mechanics of the Facebook system.

Cambridge figured out a way to mine that data that people had given up to Facebook.

Now Congressmen who have even less of a grasp about Facebook and internet social media are roasting Zuckerberg for doing what people expected and wanted him to do for them, what made him the hero of a recent movie, and so forth. These are the same Congressmen who have been totally inert about the news that Russia may be able to manipulate by remote control the US power grid.

Somehow Steven Bannon, who founded Cambridge Analytica, is not on the hot seat. It's like the banker being punished for being robbed but the bank robber, clearly identifiable, gets off scot-free.

But many of those targeted never agreed to it. CA harvested data from apps which collected information from the friends of people who used the apps - hundreds more than the people who actually agreed to have their own data collected (how can you consent to invade someone else's privscy?) Zuckerberg has also admitted Facebook routinely collects data on people who don't use Facebook.

If Facebook refuses to sue Cambridge Analytica for Facebook's losses (based on violations of its TOS and fraud), then Facebook is not serious about protecting privacy. It's only serious about monetizing human beings.

More than half of the sponsors of ads on Facebook that featured divisive political messages ahead of the 2016 presidential election have little or no public paper trails, according to a study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

One-sixth of those ad buyers with little background information were linked to Russia, according to the study released Monday. Researchers examined 5 million ads encountered from Sept. 28 to Nov. 8, 2016, by about 9,500 volunteers, who were chosen to represent the demographics and partisan affiliations of U.S. voters. The ads were captured by special software in the participant’s web browsers.

Researchers said the study is the first widespread examination of digital political advertising, and comes as Facebook Inc. faces increased congressional scrutiny and potential regulation of its business model and policies.

Young Mie Kim, the study’s lead author, and her team found that a quarter of the Facebook ads that were examined mentioned candidates. Some of them drew attention to candidate scandals including Donald Trump’s remarks about women on the Access Hollywood tape or Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for official business while she was Secretary of State. The rest focused on controversial subjects such as abortion and guns. ...

Last November, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee released Facebook ads purchased by Russia. The researchers used that finding and other information to determine that 19 of the 122 suspicious sponsors they identified were Russian. ...

While sponsors of such ads aren’t required to disclose their spending online, a bipartisan measure proposed to address the gap, called the Honest Ads Act, would require Facebook and other online platforms to report the buyers of such ads to the Federal Election Commission.Facebook endorsed the act last week and had previously announced its own effort to make political ads more transparent, including a feature that would allow users to see all the ads bought by a particular sponsor.

(CNN)The former Cambridge Analytica employee whose revelations about his former company's use of Facebook data sparked global outrage will appear before Democrats on the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees next week.

Claims made by Christopher Wylie, the former employee, raised questions about how the company handled data on millions of American Facebook users and led to Facebook suspending Cambridge Analytica from its platform while it investigates.

The company was hired by Donald Trump's presidential campaign during the 2016 election.

Wylie confirmed to CNN on Thursday that he would appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.

holy crap... I followed the link to the Hill article, and read the idiotic troll comments, and took a moment to put my two cents in....
And you can't even type there.. so much spam, pop ups and malicious ware the it took 2 seconds for each letter to appear.
And, disInformation against Comey is hugely represented there. No facts or quotations to prove the "Comey is a liar" allegations, just nonsense.

Popular pro-Trump YouTube duo Diamond & Silk will testify next week before the House Judiciary Committee as part of a hearing examining “social media filtering and policing practices.” The flamboyant vloggers became a Republican cause célèbre at last week’s Facebook hearings (receiving more attention than more serious issues) after they claimed they were censored by the social-networking site for their right-wing politics. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for “an enforcement error” and said the website had reached out to the duo to resolve the situation—a claim Diamond & Silk disputed, despite email evidence proving them wrong. One of the lawmakers who took up the pro-Trump duo’s cause, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-MO), will testify before the panel. And along with Diamond & Silk, experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the News Media Alliance will testify. The committee also extended invitations for representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google to appear.

Dan, if you're on Firefox, look to the right in the address bar and if you see an icon that looks like a page or an open book, you can click on it and reach a text version of the article without all the extraneous crap. I don't know if works for comment sections, but I use it all the time to read articles. The Hill is especially bad lately with popups, even in the articles. I stopped reading comments a long time ago.

holy crap... I followed the link to the Hill article, and read the idiotic troll comments, and took a moment to put my two cents in....
And you can't even type there.. so much spam, pop ups and malicious ware the it took 2 seconds for each letter to appear.
And, disInformation against Comey is hugely represented there. No facts or quotations to prove the "Comey is a liar" allegations, just nonsense.

Wylie told House Judiciary Democrats and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during a private briefing that Bannon directed the British research firm to explore methods for “discouraging particular types of voters who are more prone to voting for Democratic or liberal candidates.”

The whistleblower also told House Democrats that Bannon directed the firm to test messaging regarding Russia, Vladimir Putin and Russian expansion in Eastern Europe.

“It was the only foreign issue or foreign leader, I should say, being tested at the time I was there,” Wylie told lawmakers.

Bannon was a founder of Cambridge Analytica and held a position on its board before joining the Trump campaign.

Wylie also shed light on Michael Flynn’s advisory role at the research firm, saying that his function was to “open doors and look at potential contracts,” for the company as a consultant.

In other words, all the Bernie-or-bust types got played. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Part of me is enjoying seeing the dead-enders continue to screech about how awful Hillary was while Mulvaney demolishes the CFPB and Pruitt merges the EPA with the oil-and-gas lobby. I mean, who could have foreseen any of this, right? Oh, wait...

"There's no play here. There's no angle. There's no champagne room. I'm not a miracle worker, I'm a janitor. The math on this is simple; the smaller the mess, the easier it is for me to clean up." -Michael Clayton